


holding on to all you carry

by twistedingenue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Landlord Clint Barton, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Other, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, art restoration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2410811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You get lucky sometimes. You get people to push you around to the right direction, but you get lucky sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Barton’s wearing a single sock. He’s got shoes on, but only one sock, and Steve would point this out to him, except Barton is also showing off the vacant apartment off of the main floor and he doesn’t want to embarrass his friend and landlord. Clint may not be easily embarrassed, but it’s still rude to point things out like a missing sock.

“Right, and there’s a shared laundry down the hall here. I crammed a couple of machines in there for all of us, but if we need another, I’ve got another hookup in what used to be a kitchen pantry.” Clint actually does a fair job of keeping himself in stock of embarrassing moments all on his own. “And while all the apartments have their own small kitchens, the main kitchen is down here, for when you don’t want to heat up your place in the summer.” Clint holds out his arm, to showcase the kitchen, and nearly hits Steve in the process. “And this is Steve. Sorry, Steve.”

“You thinking of renting here?” Steve asks the man beside Clint. He’s tall, and proportioned in a way that looks thought out, but his five o’clock shadow is running on about three am, and his hair is tied back in that little bun that have become inexplicably popular around town. One sleeve is empty. “‘Cause it’s a nice place.”

“I don’t even pay him to say that,” Clint says.

“Yeah, uh,” He looks over at Clint, as if not sure how much to say with the landlord right there, but holds out his hand, “I’m Bucky.”

The name clicks for him as he shakes Bucky’s hand, “Natasha’s friend.” Steve smiles and Bucky lets out a held breath as Steve continues, “Right she said she was going to have someone come and look at the apartment. Hope it works out for you.” 

“Right, that’s Steve. He’s got one of the two suites upstairs; Darcy’s in the other one. She works odd hours. Real odd hours. I’m in the basement, and you saw the main floor apartment,” Clint holds out his hands mid-air in blank thought. “I think that’s everything, you want me to get the paperwork?”

Bucky darts his eyes over to Steve, leans over and looks down the hallway that leads to the empty apartment in the converted Victorian, “Yeah, sure, Natasha’s usually right about things.”

“Don’t say that too loudly; she might let it get to her head, and I’ll never hear the end of it.” Clint wanders off, whistling as he does, a little good-naturedly, Bucky follows Clint’s saunter with his eyes.

“He’s the landlord? ‘Cause that was about the weirdest apartment tour I have ever been on.” Bucky’s voice is a little strained and bewildered, and he looks it, too, holding himself close together.

“Did he explain the haunted closet?” It’s a particular favorite of Clint’s. It’s also a litmus test for him, if the potential housemate doesn’t have a sense of humor about it, they are not going to survive. Darcy will eat them alive; she preys upon the poor humor of others.

“He showed me an access door in a closet.” Bucky narrows his eyes and something turns playful, easing his stance, “And that if Clint really wanted, I could leave my prosthetic in there and let the ghost use it for awhile.”

Steve looks down at his sketchbook to hide just how hard he’s keeping from cracking up, but he was sketching up a terrible rendition of Clint’s gym bag hanging off a hook on the back door, and his glasses slip on his nose and it makes the bag leap on the page. His laugh escapes, and when he looks back up, expecting Bucky to have closed up because he was making fun of his missing arm, instead he looks satisfied and smug. Steve raises his eyebrows, “I guess that depends on whether the ghost can utilize solid objects or not.”

“If we are going to get into ghost dynamics, then we have a long conversation ahead of us,”  
Clint walks back, the floorboards creaking under his feet, with a packet of paper rolled up in his hand and a couple of pens tucked behind his ear. He takes over the kitchen island, smoothing out the lease against the laminate top. Clint often makes noise about replacing the countertops, maybe get something classy, but then that’d be harder to clean and Steve makes such a mess with his art shit, so why bother. Steve doesn’t fault that, the kitchen has the biggest sink to clean out paint pots and the island almost always has some sort of mess on it that he caused. Clint has to shove a few pencils out of the way as it is just to get enough space to flatten out the paper.

“This can’t be right.” Bucky says a minute or two later, his pen circling the payment amount and looks up in disbelief at Clint. His jaw drops a little, and Steve itches to draw his expression, the way his lips round out his face.

“It is,” Clint says, “Checked it myself. It is a little more than what I charged the last guy, but the property taxes went up a tiny bit, too. It evens out. “

The door leading outside from the kitchen slams open and shut, and the whirlwind that is Darcy stops long enough to remove a jacket and a scarf, put them on a hook, drop her keys in a bowl by the door and slings her bag forward.

"Steve, you would not believe my day. First, Jane is like, 'Darcy, I need you to locate and order fifteen random parts and I need them cheap out of my own pocket,’ so I spent two hours reading poor English descriptions on Alibaba tracking them down before she realized she didn't have her credit card in her wallet. And that's how Jane Foster learned that I have her credit card number memorized. Then the library seemed to forget how interlibrary loan worked and still doesn't have my books," She turns around, her head dropped as she searches her bag, "Also, I stopped at the pharmacy for girl things and picked up your medicine." She drops a small bag on top of his sketchbook because no matter how many times he's told her to stop that, she still doesn't listen. But it does mean he doesn't have to go out of his way to pick up whatever pills he needed a refill on, so he'll forgive her.

Darcy finally focuses on Bucky, who has stopped, pen still on the page. He hasn't stopped in recognition, but as if he's watching a tornado, in awe of everything Darcy has left in her wake. "Barton, did you let someone sign a lease without letting me meet them?"

"In fairness, he's only at the initialing stage, and he balked at the rent," Clint answers. 

Darcy turns a finger to Bucky, "Do not balk at the rent. The rent is fine. In fact, it could be lower, you understand?" Darcy and Steve would both have been priced out of a decent neighborhood if it weren't for Clint and his accidental rental acquisition. "The rent is fine." She finally takes off her sunglasses, and Steve frowns at the deep circles under her eyes. "I'm Darcy, you want some coffee?"

Darcy makes her way over to the ancient and venerable coffee machine in the corner. Drip, nothing fascinating and sleek, but it makes a good pot. Bucky introduces himself. "Darcy," Steve says cautiously, because the wrong step can lead him into a place he doesn't like to go, "Maybe you should nap instead of coffee."

"No can do, Steve, I got to go bang out a page or two before work tonight. It's the bean for me." Darcy scowls at the empty pot and sets about putting a new one on and turning back, “Let’s have a look at you, then.” Because that’s not creepy at all, but Darcy has never been much of a person that can control her mouth when she’s in an uncaffeinated state. “Alright, you’ve got permission to walk around half-naked.”

“Uh, thank you?” Bucky’s eyes dash sidelong over to Steve and Clint, “I think?”

“Hey, seal of approval. Anyways, I’m going to let this drip away while I pull out the books. You, new guy, you understand about the rent?”

“It’s monstrously high.”

“I like you already,” Darcy says.

Bucky lets out a held breath after Darcy finally leaves the kitchen, “Is she okay? Is she always like that?” 

Darcy has scared off prospective roommates before. Steve had liked Maria, would have liked her as a nice, calm roommate. That didn’t happen. She’d gone to one of the complexes in town instead because, in her words, she’ll pay a lot more in therapy and alcohol living with them, than on the rent on a one-bedroom with a bonus room at the Ivy Gate Apartment Village.

“Darcy is…Darcy is pretty much running on an empty gas tank and a little bit of blood in her coffee stream,” Clint answers, flipping the page over so Bucky can start reading and signing. “She’s sweet, though, and you’ll wake up some mornings to thesis-induced baking or bacon.”

And a real stunner, Steve wants to add, but he’s not Darcy. He doesn’t need to say everything that comes to his brain. It’ll be real nice to have the house filled up again, but it does mean some of his practice canvases are going to need to find a new home in his room. Storing them in the empty suite was only meant to be temporary, anyway. If he has to look at them every day, with their rips and tears, crackling paint, and so much smoke damage, it might actually mean he gets around to working on them.

* * *

Bucky moves in the next morning. He reserved rooms at a local hotel for a couple more days, but he cancels them out, not wanting to leave the moving truck in the parking lot any longer than he needs too. It’s a big sign that says, “STEAL ME,” and no matter how many times he checks the lock, it’s pretty much everything he owns in a single rental truck. It’s terrifying to leave it in a parking lot.

He has breakfast with Natasha in the morning, before she heads into work. He eats pancakes with artificial maple syrup; she eats what is just known as a double breakfast, two eggs, two pieces of toast, two slices of bacon. She pushes her phone over to him, “That’s who you will be seeing tomorrow.”

Bucky takes the phone in his hands. It’s a personal photo, a well-groomed man rolling his eyes, presumably at Natasha. He’s bent over a prosthesis, familiar in its shape to the one Bucky uses, but it has a metallic shine where his current one almost matches his skin tone. “Yeah? Him or the machine?”

“Both, I think. Tony was prepping the test units for your cohort when I took his picture yesterday. Pepper is fine by the way, even though you didn’t ask,” Natasha says. “She was helping me package the proposal for the Bigby account.”

“You needed help figuring out how to impress corporate bigwigs? I figured between you and your partners, you could just intimidate them into accepting your risk management plans.”

“I’ve been told I can be a bit abrupt,” Natasha scoffs, like she doesn’t believe her own image in the mirror. “Potts volunteered to help me with it, since Coulson asked me to do more of the presentations after his surgery. You like Barton?”

Bucky shrugs, “Seemed alright. Kind of spacey.”

“He’s not—“ Natasha stops and clearly reconsiders what she was about to say. “Okay, he is a little spacey. He’s also got a real sharp head on his shoulders when we are developing the security and loss prevention portions. But ever since Phil refused to step back and slow down more after his whole heart thing, Clint’s been distracted and new people make him jumpy.”

Bucky half-grunts and nods, he understands that, it’s just early and his mouth is full of pancakes. Nobody at the house was too annoying when he briefly met them, and even if they were, he’s not likely to be in town forever. At least, with any luck he won’t be. That’s the entire point of being here.

Natasha had all but cheated his name into the test trials of Stark’s new prosthesis attempt, after he had let slip that most days, he’d rather go armless than wear his. It hurt, it wore him out before the day was done, and it didn’t respond the way it should. Stark was supposed to change all that, with his background in robotics and artificial intelligence, his generation of machinery was supposed to be head and shoulders above what anyone else was doing.

He was lucky. Even with Natasha in his corner trying to get him a spot, he still had to get through the pre-trial on his own, had to meet the minimum physical and mental requirements. There had been another person trying to get in the group when he went to get tested. Bucky passed, the other guy didn’t, and he left half in tears.

You get lucky sometimes. You get people to push you around to the right direction, but you get lucky sometimes. Natasha pushed him towards Stark and then to Barton. The house is beautiful, an old Victorian, cleaned up and converted into apartments. Or rather, apartment-like suites. He guesses the house was an upscale boarding home once upon a time, what with the shared common spaces. He gets a place to lay his head, some company besides, and rent that verges on criminally low.

He’s going to get a new arm.

And that’s the fact that keeps him going as he trots in and out of the house, with box after box, saving the larger stuff for after Natasha gets off work and can help him maneuver.

He’s taking a break, slumped in a corner with his bedding, waiting for the energy to go back to the truck and grab the next box. He just needs a little break that’s all, maybe a little power nap.

“Knock knock?” Darcy says from the door. “Sorry, I just came in and noticed that the truck was open and wanted to see if you wanted any help.”

Bucky has to refocus his eyes, blinking himself back awake. Most of what he sees is fuzziness around her face, her hair’s a mess and she’s in sweats and a t-shirt.

“I mean, I don’t mean to presume that you can’t or anything, obviously you are doing a good job of it right now by yourself and I’m just going to stop now before I eat my entire foot,” Darcy finishes, pinching her nose and flushing red.

“You’re fine,” Bucky sighs. “No foul. Yeah, I could use another hand.” When he looks at Darcy, she’s just about bursting, eating her lips with a held back joke. If he’s going to live with these guys, they have got to learn that he got over the well-intentioned long ago and saves his fucks for the assholes that stare at him, not the assholes with a sense of humor. “Out with it.”

“I was kinda envisioning what a three-armed race would have to entail,” Darcy lights up with a smile. “What would you like me to do?”

Bucky thinks of the truck, how it feels he’s barely made a dent with just the light stuff, and also knows from a decade of Natasha that just because a girl is small doesn’t mean she isn’t mighty, “Are you okay with boxes?”

Darcy ends up being totally okay with boxes, and good company besides. She keeps up a steady conversation, a real one, where she actually pays attention to his answers. She’s hauling in his single box of books, when she finally gets around to the hard question, “So what do you do?”

“Mostly try to stay off disability?” Bucky answers honestly. “Odd shit here and there, mostly temp work in engineering firms.” It’s pretty steady work at least, but he’s tried to transition to full time. He interviews great, but never seems to be the top pick.

“Yeah? You here to work at Stark?” Darcy asks, breaking open the box and peering through the books inside.

“In a sense, I suppose I am. I’m doing an intensive test of a new prosthetic with them,” he smiles out of the corner of his mouth. “I figured here is as good as anywhere to set up shop for awhile.”

“Here’s pretty good,” Darcy says. “I’m finishing up a masters. You’ll probably meet Jane eventually, she and Thor are here a lot. I got traded from the poli sci to physics department one year to help with a research project and I never quite stopped working for her. And then I have my nights at the Green Grocers, doing stock and inventory.”

“That’s a pretty full day.” Bucky does not want to go back out to the truck again, and holds up his hand to motion to rest. They both sit in his bedding, laying back on pillows.

“Yeah, but it means I really get to enjoy my day off.” She smiles, resting the back of her head on her hands, “It’s been a great day.”

“Shit, am I having you help me on your day off?” He doesn’t need her to do that. He doesn’t want anyone to do that. Hell, he barely lets Natasha do that and she’d probably make his life hell if she heard him say that.

“Oh, chin up, Bucky. If I stay still for too long, I’m liable to explode from pent-up energy. I’m constitutionally incapable of being nice and quiet.”

Part of that is true, anyway. Darcy’s nice, and she keeps helping out when Natasha finally makes it over. She could probably handle all but the most unwieldy pieces herself, but Bucky ends up just directing when they get to the bookcase and the bed frame, Darcy just hoists up the back end like nothing. For about a minute and then her arms start to shake.

“I lift boxes heavier than this at work all the time,” Darcy says, while Bucky and Natasha start working on putting things together. “Like every night. Over and over again.”

“Darcy, you can’t compare boxes to bookshelves, the weight is distributed differently.” Natasha and Darcy warmly bicker back and forth, and Bucky doesn’t even realize when he’s fallen asleep.

But he knows that maybe he’s coming into the right place at the right time, and the whole world is going to change for him here.


	2. Chapter 2

There is no part of this night so far that does not suck royally. Like, Darcy would say it sucked balls, but that’s far too pleasant of a pastime for the sheer agony of the night. She’d set up her boxes a little bit before the store closed officially, and then helped the night manager chase down the last of the straggling customers. Arguing over the price of kale isn’t exactly a good time, but it’s a typical last minute sort of thing and stopped dragging on her soul after about two months of this job.

No, her life hit the upper level of shit when she realized that someone with a pocket knife had gone through every aisle and as she was ringing up kale, went up and down each aisle and sliced through box after box. The bags of fancy organic vegetable chips hadn’t been so bad to clean up, but they’d managed to get boxes of pouched soup, and they leaked over the boxes below it, onto the floor and weakening the cardboard below it. Aisle 3 was a soggy mess.  
It’s just her and Jose, her least favorite night maintenance guy, tonight, too, and he scowls at her as if she deliberately fucked up her job to make more work for him.

She stocks and faces as best she can, but it’s plainly obvious that they are missing half the items on the shelves. There’re entire gaps in the snack food section and all the clever tricks she knows to make everything face front and enticing is going to fail the moment someone wants a cracker. But there’s nothing Darcy can do about it, other than attach a note to the managers office and wait for the local produce delivery so she can stack up apples.

It’s rounding past midnight when she’s finally done, and her phone alarm beeps and vibrates with a calendar reminder. JANE FOSTER A NIGHT WITH THE STARS 1:30 AM, she reads and dismisses. Darcy rubs at her eyes and yawns, but it’s still early in the night for her. The gas station has passable coffee, even if it tastes a bit burnt, so she just pours all the vanilla creamer she can handle into her cup.

“What took you so long?” Jane asks when Darcy gets to the rendezvous point a few miles out of town. It’s always the same with Jane, a big smile and stubborn enthusiasm, and a bewilderment that maybe not everyone would like to spend a few nights a week chasing down pet theories.

If Darcy didn’t love her so much, she’d probably strangle her. But after her first semester of grad school, when her advisor had told her that they were out of TA positions in her department and Darcy spent a frantic two weeks trying to cover the gap in her funding, when she overheard the small, frazzled professor talking about how her TA dropped out, Darcy pounced on that position. Foster hadn’t so much as blinked, just said that she’d figure out the logistics and to show up the next day.

Foster treated her well, didn’t expect her to try to teach anything physics related, and somewhere along the line, Foster became Jane. And Jane was fun and smart and a total asshole sometimes.

“I stopped to get coffee,” Darcy answers and holds out the second cup she’d grabbed. Jane’s machine was worse than the gas station’s. Jane’s coffee machine was worse than an oil slick, but Jane rarely noticed and it’s not like Darcy has the money to replace it. Jane takes the coffee.

Tonight is a rapid fire night. Once they get started, it’s three hours of atmospheric readings, Darcy barely keeping up with her laptop and spreadsheets and only one minor repair of Jane’s equipment. The van didn’t even break down, nor did they have to call Jane’s boyfriend, Thor, to come get them out in the middle of nowhere. Again.

It’s a good night, and dawn’s just beginning to break when she walks into the house and she’s faced with a choice of evils. She’s due to proctor tests later in the day, scoring some cash off of another TA who misaligned his schedule for the week, so actually sleeping doesn’t really seem to be on the agenda, no matter how much her bed is calling to her, how her feet drag beneath her. She’s got time to either write and take a twenty minute power nap, or she can write and make breakfast.

The siren call of bacon beckons.

The smell wakes up Steve, who sleeps lightly enough anyway. There’s not a week that goes by that Darcy doesn’t want to thank Thor for getting her this apartment and for introducing her to Steve. Steve’s a fucking rock, steady and patient enough to deal with her silliness, but not a stick in the mud either. He can be just as loud, stubborn and a fucking bulldozer when he chooses to be.

The man could also stand to eat more, put a little more weight on, so Darcy fries him up some bacon as well, pulls the hash browns out of the freezer and fries them up in the leftover grease. And it’s just not breakfast without some eggs, too.

“If I eat more, I will explode,” Steve says when she sets the eggs in front of him, and sits next to him at the small kitchen table, “I’m perfectly capable of making my own meals.” Unlike Clint, Steve at least puts up a token of protest. But Steve’s like her, even with the rent being low, his job just doesn’t pay all that much, and towards the end of the month, a good meal like this would never be turned down. For all Darcy bitches about her job at GreenGrocers, her discount means food is never a problem for her. So she spreads the wealth.

“Don’t care. I’ll clean up if you explode.” She answers with good cheer, pressing a playful kiss to the top of his head, “What’s on today’s agenda?”

“Framing,” Steve says, “Boss is finishing up the work on a batch of paintings from a fire, mostly smoke damage.”

“Sounds…” Darcy trails off, reaching for the right word, “fun?”

“She said I could start inpainting soon with a little more practice. I picked up some damaged paintings at Goodwill for my spare time. Yes, Darcy, it’s fun. Framing is fun enough; it really makes the difference in conservation. A good frame will save a work more years than anything else.”

Darcy remembers spare time. Hobbies. Sleeping. They are but a distant memory. There is only work and thesis and bacon. “But?”

Steve smiles, like she’s caught him in a trap. “But it’s a little invisible when you do it right.”  
And that’s Steve, he wants to live life out loud and make a difference to people. And he’ll happily do it right more than get the credit for it, but credit is still a nice thing to have. He’s not so overly humble that he’s willing to have everyone walk right over him.

She looks over at the clock on the stove and sighs, her laptop and notes and a stack of books await her in her apartment. She puts on a small smile and says to Steve, “Enjoy breakfast.” Darcy balances her own plate in one hand and ruffles Steve’s hair, because a little contact is a good thing. Steve’s hand meets hers for a brief moment.

“Hey Darce,” he says quietly, and full of concern, “You should try to sleep a little, okay?”  
It’s a nice thought from a good person. It’s just not something that’s going to happen until she finishes at least another page.

* * *

It’s a cool, crisp morning on the trail that winds through town. The trees block out the worst of the morning sun, but the wind is making for a rough day. Steve’s constantly fighting against the breeze, with his hair getting into his eyes, and his breath struggling to keep up.

“Most everyone was made for running Steve,” Sam says. “Except for maybe you. Why do I let you torture yourself like this?”

Steve’s called a halt after having kept up with Sam for over a mile. It’s good for him; it’s good for his heart to get moderate exercise as his doctor says. Steve mostly agrees, he’s breathing a bit easier and he can go a lot longer since he started a jogging habit. And even more since he met Sam a few months ago and the man wouldn’t let him quit.

Sam would, however, wait patiently, understood that there were days where Steve just wouldn’t be able to run, that his limitations were actual limitations and wouldn’t be solved with wishful thinking or the power of prayer. Sam knew that Steve would be out the next day, the next hour, ready to go again. Try again. They met as Steve was attempting, but failing, to not puke his guts out with overexertion. Sam brought him water to rinse out his mouth and stayed with Steve until Steve was ready to turn around.  
They took to each other quickly, and Steve really wishes that Sam were anything but resoundingly straight.

“Because it’s good for me. I should have eaten more vegetables growing up.”

Sam’s about three seconds away from saying something along the lines of ‘Man, you can eat more vegetables now,’ but bites his lips. “Heard you got a new roommate.”

“Now, how’d you already hear about—never mind,” Steve shakes his head. Sam had met Natasha and seemed to be formulating a plan to have her acclimated to his presence before he asked her out officially. “Yeah, we do. He seems alright.” What Bucky really seems is just plain good. Good to laugh, good to go, good with Clint and with Darcy and going with the flow.

“Seems alright? Steve, you gotta give me more than that. All I know about him is that  
Natasha’s known him practically forever and he was planning on joining up after college.”

“Then you know a little bit more about Bucky than I do,” Steve answers. “He’s good. I like him. Just haven’t had a whole lot of time with him, yet; he’s only been around a couple of days getting settled before he goes up to Stark Medical for research.” Steve stands upright, stretches out, feeling out his body and where it’s at, and where it’s at is nearly done. “Let’s turn back around.”

It’s a horrible feeling, knowing that his hard work is a warmup for his friend. But it is hard work, and that’s something Steve has never shied from and never will. They make their way back and, at least this time, the wind is on his side.

 

“Uh, so I found these in my room, and I’m pretty sure they’re yours.” Bucky knocks on Steve’s open door frame. He sets down two paintings in ornate frames and Steve groans. He’d meant to take those out of the room. He thought he had, actually; he’d taken three from the living room of Bucky’s apartment.

“I, uh, must have missed those,” Steve says, standing up and gesturing for Bucky to come inside. “Where were they?”

Bucky shrugs, “Kitchenette, behind the counter. I really hope you didn’t paint these because they are hideous.”

“Oh, god no,” Steve says, his eyes going wide because he would not be caught dead having painted naval scenes. Particularly clipper ships. Really bad clipper ships, because they aren’t even historically accurate and the coloring, even before the damage that lead them to being discovered by Steve at the discount rack at Goodwill. “I’m going to fix them.”

“Why?” Bucky asks, dumbfounded. “These kind of look like the sort of thing that a great-uncle would hang in the bathroom to gaze at lovingly while taking care of business. In a frame that a great-aunt would love.”

“Hey, there could be a great masterpiece underneath all the layers of varnish and paint,” Steve tries to say with a straight face, but he totally fails. “I’m sure someone loved this once upon a time, but I’m really more interested in the tear around the bow. And cleaning it, ‘cause I’m pretty sure the people who owned it before were smokers.”

Bucky shrugs and smiles lazily. “What do you do with it after you clean it up?”

“I, uh—“ Steve feels his cheeks pink up, and he laughs nervously because there’s nothing like the futility of art sometimes. “I donate it to Goodwill.”

Bucky struggles to maintain his composure, but when Steve starts laughing, Bucky can’t seem to help cracking up, too. The whole house brightens as Bucky makes his way back to his own apartment, snickering the entire time.

Steve turns his attention to the painting, really looks it over, and starts to figure out what he’s going to do with it. It’s yellowed from nicotine, and the varnish has dulled. The tear is fairly substantial, and he’s going to have to do some structural repair as well. He did good picking out this work as a practice canvas, it’s going to need a lot of different work.

He runs his hand along the frame and some of the paint flakes off, revealing gilding underneath. Steve would have thought it had been cheap wood; it certainly looked mass-produced when he bought it, but now that he really looks at it, the frame looks well-made underneath gaudy milk-paint.

“Might be a nice, easy place to start,” Steve says to himself, and sets the painting on a table before he collects his tools to start removing the canvas from the frame.

* * *

The instructions say for the first week to arrange for transportation to and from the Stark office, and Natasha obliges cheerfully. Or at least as much as she is cheerful having to take time from work to cart his sorry ass around. But she tells him that with a kind smile and perked eyebrows so it’s perfectly cheerful from her. He keeps the conversation on her, her work and her friends, because if he stops to think about himself, he’s going to show just how nervous he really is about all this.

“Work is good. We’re about ready to do an inspection and interviews next week at one of the local warehousing firms. It’s easy work, and we won’t have to travel for it. Phil and I have racked up too many frequent flyer miles recently; it feels weird not to be sleeping slumped in an airport lounge.”

He and Natasha didn’t grow up together. They’d been at each other’s edges as teenagers though, in the same groups, just at different schools, and had a fledgling friendship because of it that just magnified in college, before Bucky’s accident. And after, Natasha was one of the few people that gave no quarter when he slumped down and became irritable, didn’t call him an inspiration, or refuse to look at anything but whatever was taking the space of where his arm used to be.

She called him a whiner and was just there for him. He loved her a little bit, best friend and sister. And chauffeur for this week.

“You’ll meet Coulson, I’m sure.” Natasha’s voice is like the Sahara, and Bucky has a feeling that he’s missing a bit of context here, and he’s getting an inkling of what exactly that context might be, when she glances over at the red light and waggles her eyebrows. “He’s a good influence on Clint, honestly. And Darcy. And practically everyone, but don’t tell him that.”

Bucky stops responding to her, starts looking out the window at the road. A constant movement, steady and fast, lets him lose himself and calms the racing thoughts. He’s read the fact sheets, the initial plans, everything, but it still strikes him as a little unreal that he gets to try something like what Stark has promised. It’s hard to not give into the hope that it will actually work—a fully responsive arm, near as to flesh as can be. 

The reality of pulling up to the building is jarring. He had been expecting some huge office building, even if it wasn’t a high rise. Just something large and grandiose, something Stark-ish in stature. Instead, Natasha leads him to a building in a well-maintained medical park. It’s nicer than any of the other hospitals and offices he’s gone too, but it’s still just another doctor’s office.

“Whatever you do, don’t call him Doctor Stark. It goes straight to his head. He’s not a medical doctor,” Natasha says loud enough to catch the attention of a beautiful strawberry blonde.

“Don’t say that too loudly,” she says, smiling as she shakes Bucky’s hand and raising her eyebrow at Natasha. “He might just decide that he needs more degrees.”

“Bucky, this is Pepper Potts, she manages Stark. Both the man and the business,” Natasha says.

He’s not entirely certain why they keep talking about Stark. The instructions state that a technician would be meeting with him and the other subjects during the course of the week for the initial tests and fittings. But it’s clear with Pepper Potts at the complex that Stark must be on site to monitor everything. That has to be it, because the alternative is just surreal.

But surreal seems to be in order because the room they finally enter is notable for a couple of reasons. One, it is a mess. There are bits and pieces of metal and plastics everywhere, gizmos and gears. Two, there is a man yelling at a robot in the middle of it, and, somehow, the poor thing looks anxious. Three, for once, there is some excellent music playing in the middle of a medical office and that just never happens.

“That’s Tony Stark,” Bucky says, harshly and too loud when he meant it to just be heard by Natasha.

“Unfortunately,” she says back and rolls her eyes.

“Tony!” Pepper says sharply, not louder than the music, but in opposition to it. “Barnes is here; stop berating DUM-E for your faulty programming. JARVIS, the music please?”

The music stops. DUM-E stops and swivels to face Pepper, but Tony pouts, “But Pep, if I don’t berate the scrap metal reject, he’ll never know how much I truly care for him.”

“Tony,” she sighs. He’d call it long-suffering, but it’s not; it’s fond and expected.

“Go, both of you! Pepper, take that harpy of a risk manager with you and let me work with this strapping young man.”

Strangely enough, Natasha smiles at being called a harpy and the two women turn and walk out, talking about insufferable business partners.

Everyone knows the story behind Stark. Billionaire, genius and wild man of Wall Street, who, after being attacked by his own weapons after a demonstration in Afghanistan, abruptly reversed directions and split with his long-time business partner Obadiah Stane. That's what everyone knows, and the rest is all rumors.

Tony Stark should not be looking at Bucky Barnes with unrestrained glee. "Do you want to see it first?"

"Um," Bucky says, and he doesn't have time to finish because he's being herded by another little robot over to a table. "Yes?"

Stark stands aside to reveal, well—it’s an arm, held in place by two short, u-shaped stands. It's the most arm-looking prosthetic he's seen, except that it's metal. It sits in the uncanny valley, and he’s skeptical about its effectiveness until he sees the articulation on the fingers. They'll do more than just grasp and hold in place, if they do what he thinks they'll do.

"It looks," Bucky weighs the silent expectation on Stark's face against his own eagerness, "heavy."

"Heavy, he says. The man says it looks heavy. Well, fine, no, it's not heavy." Stark lifts the arm off of the stand and holds it up. "It's arm-weight. To be on point, it's your arm-weight. If we get this right, the materials will be the only difference between what's currently hanging off your shoulder and this," he shakes the prosthetic, "is a very high-tech and precise alloy that I’ve created just so you can open a peanut butter jar and go bowling without having to switch out attachments. Unless you really want to back out now." 

"No," Bucky says quickly, "Let's do this. I want this."

He doesn't go home with a new body part; he goes home after having the most intense measurement session of his life. But he plays with the prosthetic a little when Tony isn't looking. He moves the fingers back and forth, marveling at how they can stretch out wide.

"I shook my own hand today," he announces to Steve when he gets home and finds the man cleaning brushes in the kitchen sink.

“I think the frames from the boat painting I bought at a Goodwill are nearly priceless,” Steve says in a low, unrestrained voice, but his eyes are tight and conflicted; they are filled with awe, wonder and completely overwhelmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything I know about Art Restoration and Conservation comes from my time referring insurance claims to [ The Conservation Center](http://www.theconservationcenter.com/) and the amazing insiders tour I was given. I miss that job, we had field trips.
> 
> You can always follow me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) where I prove that I am working on this, I'm just a slow, steady sort of writer.


	3. Chapter 3

“I don’t understand how this frame is worth more than any of the other paintings you’ve brought in over the past couple of months,” Darcy says. “It looks like a frame you’d get at a thrift store--that you did get at the thrift store.”

“I know,” Steve says, running his hands through his hair. “I know; it’s just nuts, right?”  
It’s another early morning for the two of them. Steve’s had a restless night, and ultimately decided that staying awake was less trouble than trying for another hour or two of sleep. Darcy’s just keeping her sleep schedule tidy on a night where Jane didn’t go out.

"But it's so ugly," Darcy says, looking at the frame in bewilderment. "How can you tell?"

In truth, it was probably just luck of where Steve had started removing layers of grandmother-approved paint jobs that had led him to pay closer attention. A makers mark inside the frame, the quality of of the carving—it had left him with a small churning in his stomach and his brain going into overdrive. He tells Darcy this as he watches Bucky come in, dressed and ready for the day, and adds, "I still have some more research to do on it, though."

"Sounds like all signs point to a stinking rich Rogers, though," Bucky says and looks up with pleading eyes. "Feed me, Darcy? I've got a long day ahead of me."

Darcy smiles and heads back to the refrigerator. "Ah, what the hell? I could eat. Omelets?"

Bucky leans up against the counter, clearly in a good mood. "Have you ever noticed that you have an egg-based diet?"

“It’s true,” Steve agrees. “Eggs in the morning, a dozen different ways, and fried rice a few times a week.”

Darcy pulls out the egg carton, along with some prepped veggies and ham, and levels a devastating look at Bucky. “Are you bemoaning eggs, Barnes? Did they do something to you?”

Steve is about to open his mouth and insert a similar tease when he realizes that they are flirting. He’s seen that look on Darcy, during the few times she’s dragged him out to bars to scandalize the people of this town.

“Nothing at all. In fact, I started my life as an egg,” Bucky snickers and his phone rings and he scrambles to answer it. “Hey, Natasha.” He turns away to try to take the call in relative peace.

“You need any help with the frame?” Darcy asks. Steve cannot ask any help of Darce—she already feeds him, manages to figure out what errands he needs to run—she does too much. He’s always figured that Darcy is just a massive mother hen. She’d probably sit on the eggs she gets just as much as she’d eat them if they weren’t already in the pan.

“Not right now, no,” he answers.

“Well, I’ve got mad research skills if you need them,” she answers and, not for the first time, Steve really wishes they had that sort of friendship where he could just kiss her cheek in thanks.

Bucky turns back around, dropping his phone on the counter, “Shit, Stark can’t throw me out of the program if I’m late, right?”

Steve narrows his eyes. “What’s up?”

Bucky rubs the fingers on his hand together. “Natasha’s car broke down, and she’s not going to get back in time to take me over. We’re supposed to be doing test runs today, but if I can’t get there--” He collapses, laying his head on the table and breathing hard.

Steve wants to jump and say he’d take him, but his work is in the opposite direction. There’s no way he’d be able to drop and pick him up with any amount of certainty. He still wants to, though. He likes Bucky, and the opportunity to spend more time with the man just itches at him.

“I can take you,” Darcy offers, coming ‘round the counter and rubbing Bucky on the back. “I got nothing I can’t cancel today. Jane can seriously get her own coffee, and if I can get her name dropped at Stark, I’ll probably get another imaginary raise.”

“Can you really?” Bucky lifts his head up. His hair sticks up as if it were filled with as much hope as his voice. “Darce, that would be amazing; I really owe you one.” And Bucky does what Steve wishes, leans over to kiss her on the cheek. Just like that. Just as if they’d known each other for as long as Steve’s known Darcy.

It’s not good to hold onto jealousy, Steve knows. But he can’t help but acknowledge what he’s feeling, and he is a little green with envy that he can’t find the courage to take such a simple step, even in friendship. If he wants it to just be friendship, because he kind of likes Darcy. He hasn’t dared to really think about it too much, but seeing Bucky and Darcy flirt gives him a pang of regret. She’s her own woman, and she’ll do as she pleases, but maybe it’s time to be more honest with himself about going for the things he wants.

“Yeah, totally,” Darcy says, a little flummoxed at the gesture of affection. “You need me to stick around, too? I could use a day away from the apartment and not at work. It’s been awhile.”

“You’d want to spend it at Stark?”

“I’ll be spending it with you.” Darcy’s smile suddenly turns shy and considering. “It wouldn’t be my first time hanging out in medical places with someone in this room.”

“That’s because you insist on going,” Steve objects, but Bucky looks confused, and this really isn’t a big thing. Steve’s not any the worse for wear these days; everything’s mostly in maintenance mode. “I kinda lost the genetic lottery. It’s all a bunch of little things, but every so often they’ve got to do tests, figure out new medication.”

“You shouldn’t be alone for those,” Darcy says, as she has said since they met and Darcy learned that doctors were a permanent part of Steve’s life. Somehow she just has figured out when the worst of the appointments come up, and her schedule clears, and she’s there. Sometimes just to sit in the waiting room, but there have been times when he asks her to come in with him. “No one should be have to be alone for the big things.”

Steve wonders who in her life was alone.

“I wouldn’t mind the company,” Bucky answers. “I might have to send you out, though. They let Natasha in, but, uh, sometimes when they are playing with nerves it gets painful. I don’t-- it’s not pretty.”

Darcy assures him that whatever he chooses is good by her, she knows how to keep herself busy. Breakfast is good, Steve decides, good for all of them to have together. He tells Darcy thank you, like he always does, and Darcy responds by roughing up his hair, her fingers landing and dragging on his neck and tells him that, “Your momma raised you right.”

“Both your mommas did,” Bucky says, between bites of omelet. “Seriously, whatever I did to end up here? I’ll gladly go through it all again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been remiss on mentioning my ongoing beta, evil kneazle, with help from chocolate-and-creamcake. Wonderful people both of you.
> 
> I can always be found at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) where I am currently obsessing over farmer!Clint. Don't you know that farmers are like catnip to midwesterners?


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky’s breath catches when he and Darcy walk into Stark’s lab. It seems to have changed overnight. Darcy’s eyes dart around, trying to take it all in. The place is clean, almost spotless, and there’s now what appears to be the world plushest dentist chair next to the table that has housed Bucky’s new arm for the past week. The secretary at the door seemed pleased that he had brought someone with him today, and looking at the set up, Bucky is too. Darcy may not be Nat, doesn’t know him inside and out, but that’s okay. Darcy is steady and cheerful, and even now she steps closer to him.

“Cheerful in here, isn’t it?” she says, “I kinda dig the industrial lighting, really sets the mood.”

“Hey, that’s not Red,” Stark says, entering from a small room adjacent to the lab, “Are you playing around on her? Seeing new hair colors? I don’t think that’s going to end well for you.”

“Good morning to you too, Stark. Natasha’s car broke down. This is my roommate Darcy.” Bucky says, determined to be polite, but his patience wears thin with Stark sometimes. Bucky likes irreverence, but Stark takes it to a new level - every time you think he’s finally about to be serious he deflects with a joke and a jibe.

“Ahh, at Barton’s commune?”

“It’s not a commune, Mr Stark,” Darcy says sweetly, “If it were, there’d be a whole lot more free love. Only ones getting any are Clint and Phil, and I believe Phil said that there was a moratorium on you commenting on his love life.” She blinks impishly and rapidly. Bucky proudly beams at Stark, and gestures at to Darcy as if he’s showing her off.

“Right, I don’t want to think about how Risk Managers get their nuts off together.” Stark shakes his head, “Probably takes all the fun out of sex. Okay, let’s move on. I know I said we were going to do a test run, but I think we need to rearrange the steps.”

Stark takes one of the rolling chairs tucked into the lab table and sends it towards Bucky. Bucky passes it over to Darcy, who sits and twirls. It’s such a carefree action that Bucky almost forgets to be nervous, and it’s so good that she’s here. A second chair comes towards him, and Bucky stops it and wheels it towards Stark before sitting down. “Rearrange the steps?”

“I explained how the setup works? That we are going to implant little microchips that function as part of your nervous system, relaying the information from head to —“ Stark waves his hand “Stump to prosthetic.”

“Right? So whats the problem.”

“Implant has to go first. We can do some testing beforehand, but it’s not going to be the actual thing, and it might just mess you up more when you actually have to learn how to use your arm.”  
Bucky lets out a breath. It’s nothing big, but he hadn’t been looking forward to the implant portion of the prosthetic. Too much time spent with needles and watching his arm turn sour and the needles not doing a damn thing to stop it. No good memories of that at all.

“It wasn’t on your schedule until next week. I’d like to change it to today.” For once, Stark levels a clear and calm look at Bucky, not a hint of a joke, just understanding, “If you want to put it off until it was scheduled, we can pause until you are ready.”

“Can you give me a minute?” Bucky asks, “Let me think in peace?”

Stark holds up his hands and turns on his heels. He walks back to the smaller room.

“Did you want me to go too?” Darcy asks. “I could go visit a vending machine,” She offers with a small smile. Bucky finds that he doesn’t want her to go, and spins her chair, watching the loose fabric of her clothes and her hair whip around. Her eyes are closed and her face serene.

Bucky keeps turning her as he thinks. He’s known that this was part of the deal, that being part of an experiment means that a real medical procedure has to be done. He’s had enough of them though.

“Haven’t told you how I lost the arm, have I?” He says as he slows down the chair and Darcy blinks her eyes open. She shakes her head no. “It would be fastest just to say I fell, but falling was the easy part. I feel out of a tree during my summer break, trying to convince my seven year old neighbor to get down before he hurt himself. Turns out, I’m the one that needed the warning.”

Bucky keeps his voice quiet and understated, trying not to show how unnerved he is right now. It’s a struggle to keep his breathing even, but he does,“The didn’t think the wound was too bad at first but I caught an infection. A few days later, I passed out and went to the ER. I slept a lot and every time I looked up everyone’s face got worse and soon I couldn’t even look at my arm, it just turned colors and seemed to die whenever I did. Eventually they just took it off to save the rest of me. I don’t deal well with test and hospitals that well anymore.”

Darcy isn’t the first person he’s told this too, but the others have all been people he’s known for a lot longer, like Natasha, or part of therapy. Being able to tell Darcy is unexpected and he hasn’t been able to gauge her for how she might react yet. She could try to be understanding in the sickly sweet way that betrays how very much she doesn’t understand.

“That really sucks,” Darcy says with concern and sympathy, “Totally a good reason to be wary, Barnes. How are you feeling right now?”

His heart is beating fast, but his mind is clearer than it normally is when faced with doctors and tests. Stark tends to put him at ease and this place is nothing like the bright white of the medical facilities he’s been in. More like rehab than anything. Stark’s already said that if needs time, he’s got it. Knowing he has a choice, that he won’t be dropped for the delay, that’s something that calms the worst of his fears.

“Need details,” He answers, “need to know what he’s actually going to do today.”

“Alright, do you want me to go ask or bring him back to talk to you?”  
Starks not a doctor, doesn’t spike the same emotions that white coats tend to do, “Bring him in.”

Darcy knocks on his door, and Stark comes back out, more level and calm than he’s ever been. Sometimes it feels like when Stark is focused the weight of his intensity and care could crush Bucky into the ground.

“Tell me what you want to do to me today,” Bucky asks.

Stark takes a breath and rubs at his face, “Needles. Big ones. Jammed here,” he points to spots on Bucky’s shoulder, “Here and here. Little microchips that will interface with the arm over there. It’s complicated, but it’s kind of a rudimentary nervous system.”

“No cutting?”

“I’ll even numb the area for you. I’d put you under, but there’s apparently regulations against people doing that in what the government considers ‘something akin to a basement workshop’ so I can’t knock you out or anything.” Stark rolls his eyes with exasperation, “But it should only take a few minutes. I’ll bring in a nurse from the offices upstairs to help me out. I’ll play whatever music you want. It will require you to take off your shirt and sit in the chair over there.”

“That was blunt,” Darcy mutters, “Don’t you know any nicer ways of explaining shit, Stark?”

He narrows his eyes at Darcy, assessing and direct, and Bucky feels something protective curl in his stomach. But then Starks eyebrows lift and his face softens, “Look, I think I can understand.” He taps at his chest, “I have some complicated machinery going on in here, the result of an accident that sent a weapon I was working on into my chest. They couldn’t remove all the particulate and it was only a one-off bit of medical genius that figured out a way to get it to stop worming it’s way to my heart. But while he was figuring something out, I was practically at the mercy of every decent doctor and surgeon in the United States and beyond.”

“You end up preferring the blunt to anything else,” Bucky says, ostensibly to Darcy, reaching out and taking her hand. It’s warm and soft and he runs his thumb over the center of her palm, and doesn’t want to let go. “I can do that, Stark. Numbing only. Can Darcy stay, if she wants?”  
Darcy looks down at their hands, her smile small and questioning, “I can stay.”

“She can stay,” Stark confirms, “I’ll call down the nurse, get in the chair Barnes, and I’ll start setting up. This is all we are doing today. Tomorrow we’ll start attaching.”

Bucky goes to get settled, leading Darcy the whole way over. It doesn’t take long for everything to get started. The needles pierce his skin, and he breathes slow and deep, and focuses on the weight of Darcy’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to fireun for the beta on this chapter. 
> 
> You can always find and pester me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Steve gets home, Bucky has been back for hours, much earlier than expected. Darcy's taken off, to do research at the library and she’s picked up extra hours at the store. Clint and Phil are working long hours today. Or on a date. Something where Clint hasn’t been home for hours at a time, when normally, he works from the kitchen table with a notepad and a laptop and a pair of old man headphones.

But tonight there’s no one around, and Bucky is antsy through and through. Every little touch and sense brings up more than just a bodily sensation. It’s half-formed memories, nothing that sticks and nothing that lasts, but they curl through the fissures of his experience and it’s leaving him exhausted.

He waits until Steve’s been home for a little while, because he doesn’t want to be rude. He just doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

"Can I come in and just...." Bucky trails off, staring off into space. His face is a little blank, and he's holding an ice pack on his stump, "I don't know, something."

“Yeah, of course, I was just going to doodle and watch Netflix for a little while,” Steve says, stepping aside for Bucky, “You need anything?”

Bucky bites back his real answer, which is a nap and a large supply of booze to put him to sleep. Just says no, and stands around until Steve actually does settle into his couch with a sketchpad and a remote control, which he hands to Bucky.

“You pick, it’s all just background noise to me.” Steve says.

Bucky scrolls through Steve’s list, not really registering the shows and movies at all. He picks one at random, and doesn’t watch it either. He looks like he is though, but really he’s listening to the scratch of Steve’s pencil against paper, counting his breath and finally breaking through some of the loudness in his head.

“How was it today?” Steve asks, a little warily, after Bucky takes the ice pack off, “Stark didn’t throw you out? Because if he did, I will go and have words with him, he can’t expect you to be absolutely perfect. I know him, I’ve done work for his company and Pepper likes me and I’ll talk—“

Bucky can’t help it, he grins as Steve gets fired up over the mere prospect of Bucky’s ejection from the program. He nudges against Steve’s shoulder, moving closer, “No no no, I’m still in the program. No need to go engage in fisticuffs with Tony Stark. Although I am impressed with how quickly you spring to my defense, Rogers.”

Steve opens his mouth and drops his gaze, “I just —“

“It’s good. No, today was just rough, cause we decided to move up the schedule on the implant portion of the prosthetic. Medical stuff is messy.”

Steve’s pencil stills, “Yeah I understand that a bit. I think I did most of my growing up in doctors offices. I go and I just feel resigned these days that someday they’ll find something that I can’t just power my way through.”

Bucky leans his head on Steve’s shoulder, “Shit, are your bones filed into points? What the hell, Steve. I go looking for a little comfort and you just attack me.” His eyes go wide in mock outrage.

“Hey, I can’t help the way I was made,” Steve laughs, “There’s plenty of comfortable spots on me.”

“Yeah, am I going to have to find them?” Bucky asks casually, but things are turning between them and he wants to backpedal. But Steve’s mouth closes and quirks, and the faint blush on his cheeks is lovely.

“I uh, hey, uh,” Steve flusters and that’s gorgeous too, like he’s just realized that this has turned into a flirting situation and he just doesn’t know how to handle it. Bucky moves back towards his end of the couch, not wanting to make Steve embarrassed. But there’s no disgust, no kicking him out, and Steve would do that if he had been offended by a little spurt of teasing.

There’s another knock on the door, two quick hard taps, before the door flings open. Darcy barrels in and beelines it to Steve. She’s still wearing her coat and hat, everything to keep her warm outside.

“Darce? You okay? Shouldn’t you be—“

Darcy doesn’t flop onto the couch, she burrows against Steve, her head on his lap and facing into him. That must be the comfortable part of his body that Bucky wanted to find. Her voice is muffled by his skin but “I was fired.” Is clear as a fucking bell.

Steve tenses visibly, strokes the top of her head. Bucky lowers himself to floor and maneuvers towards her, running his hand on her back. Steve holds his voice tight, but there’s so much simmering under the it that it’s going to boil over, “What happened?”

Darcy sits upright much too fast, and hugs her legs up to her chest, “I don’t even know. I was stocking shelves when the boss came in. Not the manager, but the owners. They called all of us together and just said that the store was closing, we were to go home and we’d get our severance pay mailed to us in a week or so. I didn’t even do anything! It’d be easier if I knew I did something wrong.”

“Taxes,” Bucky murmurs, “watch the papers, they are going to be the subject of tax problems.”

Darcy doesn’t listen, but that’s quite alright. She’s not really there to figure out why she’s out a job, she wants someone with her. Bucky gets that. Steve however, is boiling over, “Those assholes should know better, should know how to run their business. If they are going to close, they need to do it properly. It’s not your fault Darcy, you know that, right? Not your fault.” Unlike earlier, Steve doesn’t have a clear plan, probably because he can’t just browbeat Darcy’s former boss into giving her job back.

Bucky lays a hand on Steve’s calf. Steve looks down and Bucky gives him a look. Calm down, you aren’t helping.

Darcy rubs at her eyes, spreading mascara and eyeliner everywhere. Bucky squeezes himself between her and the edge of the couch, physical proximity seems to be what she wants right now, and he’s going to give that to her.

“It was a stupid job, but it was money, and shit, Steve, that was most of our food. I’m going to have less money and a bigger expense now. I can’t do that! I’m already on the wire.” Darcy takes off her hat, flings it off so she can run her fingers through her hair repeatedly, “I get enough from Jane that I can make rent, don’t worry about that, and seriously, it’s Clint. I could pay him in birdseed and he’d not notice, but—“

“You’ll be fine Darcy. Take it as a sign to focus on your thesis. You aren’t going to want for food,” Steve clearly has decided on a course of action, “We won’t let that happen. I’ll make up the difference.”

“We’ll make up the difference,” Bucky stresses, “and whatever else you need too. Finish your work.”

“I can’t do that to you guys,” Darcy objects and drops her head into her knees, “My father was right. The liberal arts are going to be my downfall.”

“Darcy, seriously, don’t worry about it. I’ve got money,” Bucky says, pull at Darcy so she tips over against him, “And if you don’t feel right taking something for nothing, keep being my backup for when I need to go to Stark’s.”

“I could always use a second pair of hands with the frame,” Steve offers, “We help you, you help us.”

“Maybe Stark was right and we do live in a commune.” Darcy mutters. Her breathing evens out and she lifts up to take off her coat before nesting against Bucky and hooking her feet around Steve’s. Curled up with them both, she turns her head to the television and blankly watches whatever Bucky watches for the rest of the night. She’s warm against Bucky’s chest and as the time passes, Steve relaxes too, leaning against Darcy too.

It’s the pressure mostly, two wonderful people that he’s accidentally fell in with, their weight against his own that finally clears away his doubt, his frustration, and all the sense memory that the procedure tapped into. He’s so lucky, so lucky to be here, and finds he’s not all that inclined to leave the couch anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I decided to focus on finishing up For Those Who Mourn, and good news, the last chapter of that is currently in beta. Which means this story now takes the lead!
> 
> You can always find me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

“I think you might want to check on Darcy,” Clint says to Steve when he drops off the months rent after work, “Her music’s been blaring for hours nonstop and she won’t answer the door. I’m not entirely sure she can hear me knock, but if she doesn’t turn the music down, it’s going to ruin the rest of my hearing.”

Steve did have to go through the kitchen, where there is also a preponderance of cookies sitting on one of the pretty plates that no one, including Clint or Phil, remembers buying or bringing into the household. Either someone has a faulty memory, or someone’s sweet old grandmother left their plates. And even at Clint’s door down in the basement, he can feel and hear the vibration from the music playing on their level.

“It’s not that I think she’s dead, it’s just that I’m hoping she hasn’t collapsed in a thesis-induced fit and is going to stop baking. She likes you more than she likes me,” Clint rolls his eyes, obviously suggesting that everyone ought to like Clint best, “So maybe she’ll answer the door for you. If that doesn’t work, I’m calling Jane.”

Or maybe Steve just has fewer scruples about using a screwdriver to open the door. Clint gets weirded out when he actually has to act like a landlord and not their friend. Steve steps up onto his toes and grabs the screwdriver that rests on the ledge over Clint’s door. The man doesn’t even look sheepish as he shoos Steve off to face the monster hiding in Darcy’s room.

The music steadily gets louder as he climbs the steps first to the main floor, then up the narrower staircase up to the floor that he shares with Darcy. Thrumming dance music with the bass dropping or dripping, or whatever, since Steve’s never been too much for what Darcy listens to when she’s looking for writing flow. But doesn’t normally listen to it this loud, and that does worry him. He gives her a fair chance, knocks on the door and waits for a few seconds.

He knocks again and there’s not even a rustle. Screwdriver it is. Bless old doors, easy locks, and friends who are willing to teach an angry kid how to lockpick. One of these days, Darcy is going to replace the lock. On that day, it’ll finally take Steve more than ten seconds to open her door.

“Don’t you ever get tired of breaking in?” Darcy looks more like she’s sleeping at her desk, pushing herself up from resting her head on the gel wrist rest beside her keyboard.

“Clint was worried about you,” he answers walking over to her speakers. They look like cheap shit, but they are powerful cheap shit that Darcy brought home with a gleam in her eyes proclaiming just how good of a deal she got at a garage sale as she was walking home. He finds a volume control and turns them off. “How do you sleep through all of that racket?”

“You get used to it.” Darcy rubs her eyes, “Hey, on the plus side, without a paying job, I’m making some real goddamn progress on my thesis. But” she draws out the word to about three syllables, “I’m afraid words are no longer coherent when I look at them.”

“You want to come help me out instead?”

Darcy bites her lip and looks longingly at the door and back at her computer, “Oh yes, please.”

Darcy’s not a stranger to helping Steve out. She’s helped him stretch and mix up paints and solvents, help cut mats, that sort of thing since they started living in the house. Since Steve’s always just had cheap paintings from thrift stores to practice on, he’s not been too concerned with her inexperience. Today though, he thinks that Darcy’s going to get this job done better than he could.

He’s cleaned up the frames, removed all the paint from every part of the carving until he found evidence of the original gilt. It was hidden under years of cheap paint, and Steve can just see how beautiful the wood carvings would be with it. The need for authenticity over reversible repairs always weighed heavily on his mind though.

The gesso needed repair, re-gilding. He’s working out the ethics and techniques he’ll use, but Darcy is much more suited to what needs comes after. “I’ve taken the first set of before photos, I need you to take the in-progress ones,” Darcy nods, taking Steve’s camera from him, “But that’s the easy thing, I also need to find a reputable appraiser and either a dealer or auction house for when it’s done.”

“You don’t want to keep it?” she asks, looking at the frame, tilting her head in assessment, “And I suppose an eBay listing wouldn’t really be the thing to do, huh? Don’t you have contacts at work you could work through?”

“Appraisers, yeah, but we don’t usually get….” Steve doesn’t want to malign anyone's taste in art, but most of the work that comes through the office is not this caliber. It’s personal and it’s precious, or it’s corporate and well-used. Every so often they get a minor work of note, but it’s not like Stark’s going to have a small town art restorer work on his collection when the major ones would love the work. “We mostly get photographs and family heirlooms, and our appraisers are more used to antique cans than frames.”

Darcy hums and picks up Steve’s laptop as well. Steve sets up to work on the paintings, the inpainting almost complete. He just has a little portion of the repaired tear to finish.

“They look way better now,” Darcy says, “Instead of giving them back to Goodwill, why don’t I set you up an account on Rubylane or something? I’ll list the paintings for you.”

Steve’s grateful and agrees readily. He just doesn’t spend a whole lot of time online and doesn’t know what’s out there that useful for him. He’s just never been as plugged in as Darcy, but then she practically breathes wi-fi, so it’s easy not to be. His own art has never been something Steve’s needed to share with the world either. His passion is for making things whole and right, restore meaning alongside the physical object.

“I’m taking Bucky with to his appointment tomorrow,” she says over an hour later, having scribbled down notes and names for appraisers, “Natasha and Phil had a work thing pop up, but it’s Bucky’s big day. New arm, new hand.” She grins, vicious but without malice, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology….”

“How much do you think really goes into one of those arms he’s getting?”

“It is Stark, so probably more than he’s letting on, that’s for sure. You haven’t gone with him yet?” Steve shakes his head no, since he works during the day. He never expected to feel so close to his new roommate in such a short time, so much that he wishes he’d be able to go with Bucky to his appointments. He’s almost jealous of Darcy, who since being fired has had the time and switches off with Natasha.

Or maybe it’s more envious of both of them, spending time with each other. Steve’s used to not acting on his free-falling attractions, but now? He’s got to plan this out, he’s tired of just letting things pass him by. He’ll fight at his job, to get more recognition of his talents, he’ll fight against his body to survive. He just doesn’t know where to start with either of them.

“Not yet. Boss might close the shop later in the week to visit family, If Bucky’s amiable, I might be able to go then. It’s just a lot of mights.”

“He’ll say yes,” Darcy confirms, “He’s really fitting in with us, isn’t he?”

Us, Darcy says and Steve’s emotional awareness slams into him. Steve’s not thinking of who he wants to date, he’s thinking of them. Both Darcy and Bucky, how well they all work together. He’s always gotten on well with Darcy, but once Bucky got here, everything is a new level of just … wonderful.

“Yeah, he is,” he answers. Well shit, this is an unexpected wrinkle in his thought process. But well, there’s something that Steve’s really good at and that’s being more stubborn than his problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can always find me at [ my tumblr, ](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) I swear I'm friendly.


	7. Chapter 7

Her bank account is already starting to dwindle down. It’s not as bad as it could be and Darcy has never been happier for her assistantship. As terrible as it is, it keeps some money coming in. But there’s a downward slope to her bank account that’s rather distressing. She’s just got to make it through this semester, through her defense. That’s it. Then she can find something full time while she figures out where to go next.

Darcy should start trying to look for a job now, and she’s made a few cursory calls and emails, but reaching out past that is like staring into an abyss. It’s staring back at her and Darcy doesn’t like what she sees. But in the mean time, rent is due, and Clint is going to want money in exchange for her use of the room, and that’ll eat up most of what she makes now.

Steve and Bucky are helping and that’s more than she has any right to wish for. Food just appears in the kitchen downstairs. And it’s enough for her to cook for all three of them for dinner and have leftovers the next day. She’s pretty sure that’s more Bucky than Steve, since she knows Steve’s budget is well picked over. So she cooks and bakes and uses up all of the stockpiled eggs in a week, but there are baked goods for miles.

Darcy re-learns the power of sleeping and it is the best thing ever. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a day when Jane doesn’t need her, Darcy doesn’t have class, and isn’t helping Bucky or Steve out and she’s just going to sleep it all away. Every minute of it. It will be the most glorious thing ever.

Bucky knocks on her door before poking his head in, “You ready in there?” It’s an important day for Bucky and she doesn’t want to make him late, so she throws on a sweater from the floor and pulls her hair back into a lazy bun. He’s all frenetic nerves and smiles on the ride over, even though he’s quiet. His leg never stops shaking and fidgeting, full of restlessness and pent up energy and it’s drives Darcy bonkers to see his knee move like that from the corner of her eyes. At a stoplight she rests her hand on his knee.

She doesn’t let go until the parking lot, when she reluctantly has to unbuckle her seatbelt and get out of the car. The touch had calmed Bucky, centered him maybe, gave him something to focus on that wasn’t the uncertainty of the day, but seemed to transfer into Darcy. Her heart beats too fast to just be sympathetic nerves.

That’s something she can worry about later, and she files that feeling away for future contemplation. She has time for feelings now, just a little.

Stark’s lab is set up differently again. Today it is bright and there’s few tools laid out but mostly the focus of the room is the arm. Bucky’s had fittings with it. Worn it for a minute or two at time, open and closed his hand, he’s said with a huge grin on his face. This is the first day that he gets to take it home. “I’m supposed to work up to it more or less being permanent. No idea how long that’ll take though.”

“Right, today you’ll wear it here — we’ll do some practice runs with grip strength and opening doors —and then it’s back home you’ll go. One hour at home only,” Stark lectures as he drags Bucky to sit down, “Darcy, can I teach you to help him with attachment and removal? Just until he’s able to do it all by himself like a big boy.”

“Big boy is right here,” Bucky says, but even Stark’s incidental insult isn’t going to bring down his good mood, “Will ya Darce?”

Bucky’s smile is too much for her, but it isn’t like she was going to turn him down. “Well, if it means I’d be useful,” she says, brushing aside the sweetness in his voice. She’ll never stop helping Jane, she’ll always pick up Steve’s prescriptions, and she’ll learn this for Bucky. “Just until you can do it yourself. Don’t want you getting dependent on me.”

Stark remembers to talk to both of them as he explains the process. Bucky nods along, he’s heard it before, since he’s had the fitting. There’s some strapping, which seems to be the more difficult part than the act of attaching the arm, but the fabric is plush and Bucky comments that it’s much less irritating than any of the others he’s ever used. It’s a nicer support structure than her bra, Darcy muses.

Stark opens his mouth for the inevitable comment about this strapping not need to support quite as much as Darcy’s bra needs to, or at least that’s what she braces herself for. Bucky cuts off Starks voice with a fiery gaze, and tenses so much that Darcy ends up rubbing his back. Stark never does make the comment. They practice a few times, both with Darcy’s help and without.

And then, Stark steps away, “Alright, I think you’ve got it. Stand still for a moment, don’t think about moving, seriously. I need to get baselines set for the data.” He sits back into a rolling chair and launches himself to a laptop.

“How’s it feel?” Darcy asks.

“Weird,” Bucky answers and then lets out a strange huff, “Heavy. My last prosthetic was …not like this. But it moves easier.”

It’s hard not to stare at the arm. It’s beautifully made, but it’s also unabashedly a prosthetic. The metal gleams from every articulation and joint.

“Alright Barnes, I want you to stretch out your fingers. Splay the entire hand in front of you as wide as you can.” Stark says, looking out over his laptop.

Bucky closes his eyes and raises his arm just ahead of him. Slowly and with a faint whirring sound, his palm presses forward, thumb and pinky stretch unevenly, pulling the rest of the fingers out with them. It all happens in shaky jerks. When he’s done, he opens his eyes and smiles without restraint.

“Now a fist, nice and tight with your thumb against the other four fingers,” Stark doesn’t look up this time, just continues to stare at the laptop screen.

Bucky keeps his eyes open, his eyebrows wrinkle in concentration, but his hand curls in smoothly, with the thumb taking a little extra time to set into place. The pad of his thumb rubs against the finely milled metal and he jerks his chin up, “Stark -- should I be feeling….”

“Pressure sensors,” Stark calls to him, “So yes, you should be feeling the thumb against the rest of the fingers. I can’t get them everywhere without sensory overload, but the fingers have them.”

Bucky can’t stop pulsing his thumb, grinning like a loon. Stark has him repeat the process over and over again, until the motion doesn’t require conscious thought. Darcy stands beside Bucky, content to watch as he learns to divorce the thought of movement from the action of movement.

The door opens wide, and before Darcy sees the woman, she knows it’s Pepper. The quick clicks of her heels are unmistakable, “Tony! How many times do I need to tell you that — I’m sorry, Mr Barnes, Ms Lewis, I must have overlooked that you were in here now. Tony forgot to update his appointment calendar again.” Pepper looks at both of them with a genuine smile before rolling her eyes as if they were sharing a secret about Stark, “Tony, I cannot order materials until —“

“Right, the forms. They are on my desk over there. Hey, are we out of that wheatgrass? Why isn’t there more? Lewis, don’t you work at that place where they sold the healthy smoothie shit?”

The happiness she’d been cultivating dies where she stands, “We closed,” she says as flat and terse and I don’t want to talk about it as possible.

“That sucks Lewis, do you know where we get more now?” Stark asks, standing up and walking out of the room.

“Was GreenGrocers the store that got into trouble for not paying their sales taxes correctly?” Pepper asks with concern, “Are you doing okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Really, Darcy does not want to talk about it. Luckily, Stark comes back into the lab with whatever Pepper was asking for and doesn’t press Darcy for any more details.

She almost doesn’t register Bucky’s touch as the metal against her skin feels like brushing up against the table. But his measured motion captures her attention and he carefully takes her hand and holds it in his new hand. Darcy bites her lip before asking curiously, “How’s it feel?”

“Pretty damn good,” Bucky answers. Darcy agrees, it does feel pretty damn good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

One hour a day turns into two, four, and then as long as Bucky is awake. The strangest thing about it is that he’s had to change how he walks. He’s had to adjust his balance point again now that his arm is a more correct weight. It’s not perfect, of course, because the strapping can only do so much to support the weight, and it’ll never make up for the missing muscle. But wearing this prosthesis, and the proud unnaturalness of it is growing on Bucky, is amazing. He hasn’t had to change out hands and tools to do simple things. 

He’s only broken a few glasses and mugs in the past week and Bucky can feel the difference between holding a book open and the press of a hand against his. His own fingers pressing against each other. It still feels a little alien when he looks down and sees both his hand and the prosthesis, and it just doesn’t always seem to connect in his head that they are both his.

Darcy taught Steve how to handle the prosthetic, and they both gang up on him to really barrel through the daily rituals of exercises, it’s Steve that ends up being the one to help him take it off before bed. He’s not quite ready to sleep with it yet, not after years of figuring out comfortable sleeping arrangements. Steve’s long fingers are quicker than either Bucky or Darcy, but Steve’s also more hesitant. He’ll catch Bucky’s eye and stammer and freeze before ducking his head and focusing on what he’s doing.

It’s very strange, because hesitant is not a word that Bucky would ever use to describe Steve. But Steve’s acting like he’s at an eighth grade dance and doesn’t know if it’s safe to leave the wall. Which puts Bucky in the terrifying prospect of being an eighth grade girl, and he doesn’t even wish that hell on anyone. It’s just weird, he thought that he and Steve had been getting along good, better than good, and suddenly Steve’s trying to be distant but failing at it.

“Let me get the last bit,” Bucky says, because this is the part that is the hardest for him, and he’s not going to have people around him forever. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to search out a job again, and who knows where that will take him. It only takes a moment longer than when Steve does it, “I think I’m just about ready to put you and Darcy out of a job.” He shakes his arm in his hand, putting it down to take the last of the strapping off, “I’ve just about got it.”

Besides, it’s better to do it himself. The entire point of all of this, the tests, moving here, putting himself through pain and memories, is to do more himself. Also, it does advance science and Stark’s ego, but it’s putting himself more in control. He likes the help though. He likes Darcy’s chatter and Steve’s stubbornness. He’ll always love Natasha for pushing him and kicking his ass when he needs it. He can’t go through life entirely alone, and when he leaves here, he’ll be far better off than he was before.

“Oh,” Steve says, and his hand skims down Bucky’s side without much thought. They’ve all gotten tactile lately, and Bucky wonders if it’s always been like this for them. Does Darcy hold Steve’s hand like she does Bucky’s? Would Steve take moments like this to just touch Darcy without thinking? Bucky wants to know if this is something new because of him, or if this house really is incubating some sort of free love commune.

People just don’t touch each other this much, do they? Maybe Bucky’s just been deficient in this sort of interaction the past few years. Casualness. Ease. He’s had one close friend for so long that he’s just forgotten how the world interacts.

“Oh?” Bucky asks back with concern, “You want to keep having to come in here night after night?”

Steve blushes and Bucky gets it now. _Oh. Steve likes him._ That’s quite okay really, more than okay. Bucky just doesn’t know what to do with it because there are options available to him. Ignore it, which is a stupid idea and shouldn’t be considered. Say no, which would probably be even worse, but is a legitimate option. Bucky doesn’t think Steve does anything except with all of his will, this would be more relationship than fling. That’s a little daunting.

The rest of the options start going through his head now that fling is open and out there on his mental landscape. Yeah, things could work with Steve, but the way Darcy holds his hand when things are rough, that’s just something too. There’s too many options, too many.

“I don’t mind,” Steve says with a slight shake to his voice, and his eyelashes are just ridiculous, dark and flitting against his barely flushing skin. “But it’s yours and I don’t get to have a say in it.”

Steve gets it more than anyone how it sucks to be dependent. That being limited by your body, or worse by other people because of your body, wears you down more than the actual disability part of life. Hell is other people.

“Yeah, thanks, though,” Now Bucky feels flustered by it all and all those options run through his head again when Darcy now typical knock and fling open the door happens.

She’s been a little lighter since she lost her job. More sleep, if not any less pressure on her, has done wonders for her. “Hey boys,” she says, voice rising, “I thought it was my turn tonight?”

“Am I being passed around?”

“Like a hot potato.” Darcy retorts and runs her hands over both his and Bucky’s heads, ruffling hair, “So what are we up to tonight?”

“I didn’t know there was a we here,” Steve says bemused, “Buck, is this a we thing?”

Bucky was going to bed, but there can be a thing, “You hungry Darce?”

“Nah, I crashed a reception at school. If anyone asks, I totally knew the guy from the psychology department that’s retiring. Also, I’m from the psychology department. And so were the other two members of my cohort once I texted them that the buffet was overflowing and still hot.”

Bucky doesn’t like the sound of Darcy lying just to eat, but she’s laughing as she says it, so maybe there something there that he’s missing. Maybe it’s a grad student thing, something Darcy’s done before because Steve doesn’t look concerned either. Steve’s watching Darcy as she goes to fill a glass of water. Watching her with the same look that he was giving Bucky earlier, hungry and pretty with his sharper angles, 

Even more options open up for him, for them, maybe. Could they all be on board? Bucky thinks of Darcy’s hands, Steve’s eyelashes and they way they all just seem to have bonded so easily. Steve’s clearly thinking of it, the way his eyes dart back to Bucky and go haunted and unsure.

Bucky sure as hell isn’t going to say no to trying something new. New is just how life works, and you can’t stop the curveballs. It really just comes down to Darcy. And his mind runs into a brick wall. Just how do you convince a perfectly reasonable girl to join the free love commune? Bucky walks to his couch, settling in for whatever they decide to do. Steve settles a little more than half a seat away from him. He and Darcy volley back and forth about the frames and how her research is going, until she sits between them. She has to wiggle her ass to fit and Steve raises his arm to give her a little more room.

The little weasel, Steve leaves his arm wrapped around Darcy and she leans against him easily. Like they’ve curled up like this a hundred times before. Maybe they have. Bucky stretches out, angles himself so that his feet lie next to Steve’s sock clad feet. His own are bare, so are Darcy’s.

“It’s been a good day,” Darcy says, content and warm looking, her eyes half lidded, and looks up towards Steve. “How was yours?”

Bucky nudges Steve with his foot and smiles, lifting his eyebrows.

Bucky needs to memorize the face Steve makes -- determined, shocked, and hot, because Steve clears away Darcy’s hair and takes a breath and kisses her. It’s almost like nothing at first, and Darcy doesn’t move. Steve begins to back off but Darcy, bless her, leans into him more. Just shock, apparently.

Bucky takes one risk; he moves his foot against Steve’s ankle and up his calf, and is rewarded with Steve’s eyes opening wide and white before rolling back.

“Don’t make him faint, Buck,” Darcy says high pitched and breathless, and because she’s observant even if she can’t exactly see what Bucky is doing, she knows somethings going on below her, “Things just now got interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the home stretch!
> 
> You can find me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) and you can yell at me there for ending the chapter here.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve can feel the blood drain from his face when Darcy says that things got interesting. There's not much experience in his life to inform this particular situation, unless you count talk shows that kept him alternately entertained and appalled in the early afternoons at college. He should know better than to expect things to go exactly the way he wants.

But Darcy is still flush against him, her hands actively seeking to get closer and closer to bare skin.

"I didn't actually expect this," she says against his lips before twisting to sink into the couch, "Like, not at all. How did I not see this coming?"

“I think I saw it coming about five seconds before you did,” Bucky admits. He takes a quick breath and turns Darcy’s face over to his and kisses her too. It looks sweet and a little hesitant. Darcy ends up playing with Bucky’s hair, curling a hand around his neck, and he grins when he’s done, “Had to make sure.”

“Two down,” Darcy says, buzzing in her seat with excitement, “Now you. If this is going to be a something between the three of us, I want it to be between the three of us. I know Steve is bi as the day is long, but Buck, if this isn’t your speed….”

It feels like an audition, like he’s got to put on a show and a giggle for a relationship, but the giggle happens anyways, and he’s leaning over Darcy with his lips pursed and his eyes closed. Waiting to see just what happens.

“Jesus Christ your eyelashes,” Bucky groans and Steve’s never really known what being swept up into a kiss was like. There’s nothing sweet or hesitant about this kiss. Everything is urgent, the world won’t stop to let him breath and he’s got to get closer.

Darcy makes an indigent squeak as he climbs over her legs, because clearly this is Bucky’s speed, and it was just waiting there. They’ve all been waiting there like idiots. Steve’s firmly in Bucky’s lap when Darcy clears her throat and claws at Steve’s back.

“Hey, okay, Bucky’s up for it, clearly, but I’m not done yet.”

Steve’s not going to leave Bucky’s lap, but he does turn around to face Darcy and stretch his legs out over hers, “Do you need a better kiss?” he teases, because he can tease this way now. Dam’s been broken, and words can happen.

“No, I need you both to know I’m not here for just a threesome and go on our merry way. I’m not…not into that sort of thing.”

“Sweetheart, if you aren’t into threesomes this is going to run into some difficulty at least on occasion.”

“No, casual. One-time things. I don’t,” Darcy takes a deep breath that shakes on the exhale, “It takes me a long time to really want to be with someone either romantically or sexually, and I don’t want to waste my time if all you want is an interesting fling. Even if Steve’s practically the best guy in the universe, and I’ve fallen for Bucky faster than I have ever before, and that scares the shit out of me.”

Bucky scrunches his brows together, confused, “Wait, one of the first things you said about me is that I was allowed to walk around without a shirt.”

“Just because I find an aesthetic pleasing doesn’t mean I want to sleep with you right then and there” Darcy shifts her weight and rocks her legs, “I’d like it now — I know you now but….”

“Long haul,” Steve says, and it’s all he can do to keep from falling towards Darcy, wants to hold her and assure her that no matter what else, his intentions are lasting. “I mean, as far as you can say at the start that any relationship going to last.” Good job Rogers, he thinks as he fumbles over the words, nailed it.

Bucky tenses underneath him and shifts into a deceptive ease, “I’m willing to try, but…I was only supposed to stay here temporarily, you know that right? If you are asking for forevers now, I can’t promise that.”

Steve’s not sure who Bucky is giving an out to, Darcy or to himself. Because Steve sees this as a chance to make Bucky stay much longer than he expected. It’s a challenge. Steve likes challenges. 

Darcy tips herself into Steve, who falls further onto Bucky. It’s a little silly, the three of them crowding into a single space on the couch. “Asking for forever before we get started would be stupid. Just be patient.”

It’s a good kind of crowded because there’s a lot of bodies to touch and warm up. Bucky grumbles about next time keeping his arm on, he wants his hands on both of them. Now. He doesn’t want to wait any longer.

Everything is still tentative with newness, with the strangeness of their arrangement, and there’s at least one failed attempt at a kiss between them all that ends with a nose to the eyeball and a peal of laughter. But it’s right and it’s good and it’s going to keep happening, and Steve doesn’t want for anything.

* * *

“Here is what I don’t understand about you,” Sam says, calling a halt on their run for once, “You are glowing with the aura of the freshly laid and the only thing you have talked about for the past mile and a half is that you are ready to package up the frames to ship to the auction house.”

“I didn’t get laid, thank you, we aren’t there yet. The frames are really important.” Steve says, catching his breath and a sip of water, “The closer I get to auction the more real it becomes. I found these amazing things and I’ve brought out their worth and their beauty.” Steve may have other things on his mind as well, but they were amazing even without him. They’ll go on auction without much delay. They aren’t priceless as he claimed, but even with the fees from the auction house, he’s going to bulk up his bank account nicely. It’s going to take the edge off for a good while, he can make sure that Darcy eats and has a place to sleep while she’s finishing up school. He can take time off, focus on his own art and skills months if he wants.

Money can’t buy happiness; but it sure can buy security and that’s the next best thing.

“Which one of your roommates did you go for?” Sam asks. Steve tries to answer with a blank look but Sam presses forward, “You’ve been making cow-eyes at Darcy for months and Bucky since he practically moved in. I am not going to run another foot until you admit which one.”

“Is not running some sort of threat?” Steve twists his lip up into a wry grin, “Because running seems more of a punishment than not running.”

“Steve.”

“Gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Steve,” Sam doesn’t plead, because that wouldn’t be becoming of him. Sam just raises his voice.

Steve wipes the sweat from his forehead, looking out over Sam’s shoulder,“I, uh….didn’t have to choose.”

Sam looks down and chuckles, “You are such an asshole, you hold back for ages, because you think you don’t deserve the things you want or some nonsense and then you.… both of them? They both know about it, right? You haven’t been replaced with some version of Steve that knows how to lie to good people?”

“They were both there and with each other too, I think they’d have to know about it.” Steve can’t help the grin on his face, he’s the luckiest man in the world, and he gets to fluster Sam too. Everything just keeps getting better and better.

Sam stretches his arms and back, arching slightly, and shakes his head, “Just for your sheer luck man, lets do a couple extra laps.”

“I see that we are back to running as punishment.”

Sam starts jogging backwards without him, gesturing Steve to bring it on, “I can do this all day long Rogers, all day long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go!


	10. Chapter 10

Six weeks go by far too quickly, and it’s not without an insignificant amount of pain. The physical therapy is rough, the visits with the occupational therapist are tougher. Paula’s a middle aged woman with short curly hair and refuses to joke around until about the fourth week, when Bucky finally gets her to crack open with laughter when he deliberately misjudges his grip strength, crushing a soda can and looks up with a dazed and ditzy smile, “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

After that, she’s more willing to smile, and marvels at the ability of the new arm and the relative ease of his progress with it. Paul doesn’t say it, but Bucky may well be the shining star of the first testing round. During the group sessions, there’s those who can’t seem to get the hang of stripping out the noise from the signal quite as readily.

Bucky has goals though, and he’s highly motivated to reach them. Private ones, that he doesn’t even admit to Darcy or Steve, not yet. He wants to undo every button, undress them with the care they deserve. Tearing clothes off is just rude after all, highly annoying. But Steve’s shirts are often ridiculous plaid button downs, and he hates waiting. He might just be building up the moment too much, it may not be as intimate as he pictures in his mind, but Bucky wants it anyways.

Buttons are hard, and he practices with his own. His hands will shake, both of them, part from the use and part from the fantasy in his head. He doesn’t say during OT why this is such a big deal to him, Paula just begins each session by handing him a shirt to unbutton, and ends the session by having him button it up.

It’s been six weeks and he’s almost got the hang of it, his hands shake less, and the movements don’t stutter. Bucky can see the future in front of him, can imagine the smooth cotton shirt and hard plastic buttons. He’ll start by unmaking the shirttails that Steve, the utter goober, has tucked in. He’ll start at the bottom of the shirt, and Darcy will distract Steve, kissing his neck or running her fingers through his hair, until Bucky is done and he can slip the shirt over Steve’s shoulders. Steve’s lips get irresponsibly red when Bucky kisses him, and he’s going to make them flush over and over again. He’ll pop the button on Darcy’s jeans, he’s going to do his part in their menagerie.

But first he’s going to make it through another OT session with Paula. He’s going to make her laugh, Bucky’s going to do whatever crazy tasks she has lined up for him today. But he’s going to start with the shirt she hands over as Paula busies herself with setting up the next exercise.

* * *

Darcy doesn’t think they quite get how her brain and attraction and desire really work together, but that’s okay. At the end of the day, her boys accept her, and they soothe away the strangeness of the situation with kind words and eager exploration. For her part, Darcy doesn’t quite understand the depth of her own want, because it’s never happened before. Oh sure, she’d had a vague notion that she felt more for Steve the longer they were roommates, how she turned her growing attraction into mother-henning and steadfast loyalty because it was the only way she really knew how to express love.

And then there was Bucky, who even she understood to be hot right off the bat (and a different kind of hotness than how she thought of Steve) and she just seemed to get him, and he kept coming to her, letting her in and she did the same. That night came as a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Darcy’s more comfortable with Steve, which she can tell chaffs on Bucky a little, but the past few weeks have been wonderful in the learning.

Darcy and Natasha switch off going with Bucky to his appointments. In the last couple of weeks, he’s been driving more, but he likes the company, and he likes having someone there in case it’s not a good appointment. There’s been a couple where he leaves more frustrated and in pain. He spends the ride home staring out the window watching the power lines as they pass by. When they get home, he takes off his arm himself and is never too far from Darcy or Steve, craving their closeness.

Today’s appointment is what Stark refers to as a tune-up. He runs tests, uses the notes from Bucky’s ongoing occupational therapy appointments to adjust the mechanics inside of the prosthetic. It’s an easy day, and Darcy’s mostly just messing around on her cellphone waiting.

“Ms Lewis?” Darcy jumps up in her chair, straightening her back and blinking herself out of a daze when Pepper comes into the lab, curiously smiling at her, “Can you come with me?”

Darcy looks over at Bucky and Stark, where the former is pretty much doing bicep curls over and over while Tony has a screwdriver stuck near the elbow. “Of course, I don’t think they are going to be done anytime soon.” Pepper shakes her head in agreement, complete with fond rolling of her eyes.

They don’t end up really anywhere, Pepper leads her through hallways until they are out of the way of roving techs and employees, “You are finishing up your masters in Political Science, correct? How long do you have left on that?”

“I defend, oh god, at the end of the semester now. They haven’t sent out the schedule yet,” Darcy’s not sure why Pepper is asking her this, did Stark want to go? Did they want to make sure that they didn’t schedule an appointment for that day? “Did you need the date? I can give it to you as soon as I know.”

“How attached are you to working directly in your field?”

Darcy knows the score, the chances of her landing a job in her field right away when she wants to stay nearby for a little while are pretty dicey, “I’d prefer to, but I also prefer to eat and have a roof over my head.” She wants to help Jane finish up her latest paper, at the very least, build a few more connections.

“We’re expanding the program in a few months, since this initial run has been successful. We’re going to need a coordinator for the project and we kept hearing your name pop up.” Pepper rolls her eyes again, “That’s because Tony wouldn’t stop saying it and then he probably invaded your privacy a few dozen times to look up your qualifications. Foster can’t stop raving about you, Coulson thinks highly of you and having someone who is aware of the entire process means less education that we have to do.”

Things like this don’t happen to Darcy. She’s not the type that gets to have two boyfriends, a thesis that she’s finally seeing the end of, and a job fall right into her lap. She’s dreaming, she has to be dreaming. So like a big girl, she picks her jaw from off the floor, and tries not to squeak, “You want me?”

“We want you. If you are willing, we can set up an appointment to discuss benefits and salary and the job description, but before I put word out to my headhunters —“

“Yes!” Darcy rushes, cutting Pepper off, “I mean yes, let’s do that. I’m totally in.” They spend the next few minutes with the phones and calendars, looking for a good time to get together, penciling in a meeting during one of Bucky’s sessions if all else fails, but it’s good.

Darcy has a lot to thank Bucky for, this is just another thing to add to the list.

* * *

Steve’s decided to let the auction go on back burner. He authorized his consignment, barely skimmed the email he got saying that it sold and that payment would arrive in a few weeks, but decided to let the actual amount be a surprise. It’s found money, and his mother would have a conniption if she knew that he cheated and looked at the amount before he got it. He’s already gone out to Goodwill this week to pick up new paintings to practice on. Landscapes with loads of cigarette smoke damage this time.

If this letter had eyes, it would be staring right back at him. It’s a good sized envelope, thick, his name on the front and everything. Steve can’t open it. What if he did all that work and got a hundred dollars? Barely would cover materials and would feel like a waste of time.

“Just open it babe,” Darcy says over one shoulder, hovering.

“Come on, I want to eat steak tonight,” Bucky says from the other. The two of them are like the angels and devils, except they are both evil.

“I can’t promise there’s enough for steak,” Steve answers, and they both kiss his cheeks, and he still flushes at that, and he’s not likely to stop. He knows it encourages them to do it more and Steve is not above pandering for his audience.

“The blush goes all the way down,” Darcy says very seriously to Bucky.

“Really? I should investigate.” Bucky turns Steve around to face him, untucking his shirt “You should open that while I’m checking the state of your blush.”

Steve tries to object, but Darcy kissing the best spot on his neck and Bucky is very carefully unbuttoning his shirt. One day they will kill him but today, he’ll just open the envelope. He tears it open in uneven jags, timed only to his increasingly quick breathing. He unfolds the paper just as Bucky gets to the midpoint of Steve’s shirt. His mind shorts out and he’s not going to be able to read the words anytime soon, and his eyes skip down to the check itself.

Bucky pulls off Steve’s shirt, and Steve lets the check, what he makes in a full year, flutter down to the floor. He can pick it up later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this my friends, I reached my year end goal of completing all of my works in progress before year end. Thank you so much for reading, commenting, kudos and any support. You're all lovely.
> 
> You can pester me at [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) any time you wish.

**Author's Note:**

> You can always keep up with me at [ my tumblr](http://www.tumblr.com/twistedingenue).


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